International Education Matters

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Wall Street Journal
May 16, 2003
PAGE ONE
"U.S. Plans to Require Interviews For Almost All Visa Applicants"
By MARJORIE VALBRUN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WASHINGTON

In a major policy change, the State Department plans to conduct face-to-face interviews with almost everyone seeking a visa to enter the U.S.

The change, details of which are still being worked out, is designed to plug holes in antiterrorism efforts and address congressional criticism of lax consular operations abroad. But it already is raising concern among business, tourism and educational groups, who fear it will considerably slow a process they already consider cumbersome.

The change will greatly increase the workload of the country's 200-plus visa-issuing embassies and consulates, which processed 8.3 million visa applications and approved 5.7 million in fiscal 2002. Administration officials said they don't track the percentage of applicants interviewed. But they say it is far less than 100%, with fewer than half the applicants being questioned in countries that have relatively high standards of living and are deemed unlikely to produce many illegal immigrants or terrorists, such as South Korea.

Under the new policy, "you're probably going to be looking at 90% of the cases being interviewed," said Stuart Patt, a State Department spokesman. "We're trying to get a more uniform approach around the world, but still offer some local variations. [The new policy] will affect some of our visa-issuing posts very significantly." The few exceptions to the policy will depend "on the experience we have with that country's travelers violating their visas in the past and workload considerations," Mr. Patt said.

Administration officials declined to discuss the new policy in detail because there are still some unresolved issues, including how strictly to apply it to routine visa renewals. The change was developed in consultation with the White House and the new Department of Homeland Security, which has jurisdiction over visa policies. The State Department continues to be responsible for issuing visas.

The new policy won't affect citizens from 27 countries, many in Europe, who by law don't need visas for tourist or business travel, or from Canada, who don't need visas for most kinds of travel. Elsewhere, visa laws require personal interviews for all applicants but allow consulates and embassies to waive that requirement if it is determined that the visitor doesn't present a security risk.

The visa process came under sharp criticism after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because all 19 hijackers had obtained visas to enter the U.S. At least 13 hadn't been interviewed, three were able to overstay their visas and two belatedly were discovered to be on the government's terrorist "watch list."

Last summer, the State Department drew additional fire when it was disclosed that three of the 15 hijackers who obtained visas in Saudi Arabia received them under a then-new procedure at the U.S. embassy in Riyadh called "Visa Express," which allowed applicants to obtain visas through travel agents.

The department's inspector general later found that a total of 26,000 visas had been issued in Saudi Arabia in the three months before the attacks without interviews, compared with 10,000 issued after applicants were interviewed. The Visa Express program was discontinued last year, and the State Department now says that more than 75% of applicants in Saudi Arabia are interviewed.

Administration officials have been meeting with travel-industry groups, business organizations, university trade associations and others about the interview issue for months and recently informed them that they were finalizing the new policy.

The groups already were complaining about other visa restrictions mandated after the Sept. 11 attacks. These include more-extensive background checks for more applicants; a requirement that multiple agencies sign off on some applications; a tougher process for visitors from countries known to harbor terrorists or for people working on sensitive technologies; and the maximum initial admission periods for business and tourist visas has been cut. As a result, the State Department now rejects about 30% of all visa applications, up slightly since the terrorist attacks. The number of applications has dropped by about 20%.

Some groups say the new interview plan is unnecessarily sweeping. "How do you tell a person's intention in a two-minute face-to-face interview?" said Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber has scores of overseas affiliates representing American companies with international operations and foreign companies that do business in the U.S. Before Sept. 11, these affiliates had been allowed to deliver batches of visa applications to embassies and consulates and then pick up visas in bulk, Ms. Cardinal Brown said. After the attacks, the practice was ended in some places, but now she expects it to stop everywhere.

Chip Storie, vice president of Cincinnati Machine, a unit of UNOVA Inc., called the new policy "terrible." The tool maker recently had a $5 million sale to China held up because it took engineers from Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corp. months to get visas so they could travel to Ohio to inspect two giant metal-cutting machines their company was buying.

Many American businesses consider China the world's biggest growth market, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations estimates in its most recent annual report that 300,000 Chinese visited the U.S. in 2001. But the issue affects a range of multinational corporations, including General Electric Co. and Coca-Cola Co., that do business across the globe and depend on customers, partners and some workers being able to travel from overseas.

"Interviews are one in a related series of steps understandably taken at the behest of Congress whose intention is beyond debate -- protection of national security -- but the costs of which are simply not yet understood," said Robert A. Kapp, president of U.S.-China Business Council.

This weekend in St. Louis, the Travel Industry Association of America is holding its annual international gathering, in which the U.S. tourism industry pitches its travel packages to 1,500 officials from about 65 other countries. Rick Webster, the group's government affairs director, fears the new policy won't be accompanied by enough additional funding and staffing to conduct all the interviews in a timely fashion. Administration officials say discussions are continuing about what, if any, funds and personnel will be sought to deal with the increased workload.

Before the Sept. 11 attacks, it typically took several days to get a visa. In the immediate aftermath, the State Department increased scrutiny considerably and delays averaged six months. Now, the typical wait is between two and three months. An interview typically takes a few minutes.

Education groups said they, too, are bracing for major complications. The Council on International Educational Exchange is involved in programs that bring 140,000 foreigners to the U.S. each year to study or to work for the summer. "Come this fall there's going to be half a million students coming to the U.S.," said Stevan Trooboff, the council's president. "In many cases it will take weeks just to get the interview if the consuls don't have the staffing to do it."

Write to Marjorie Valbrun at marjorie.valbrun@wsj.com